Everyday English Vocabulary: Practise Words in Real Situations

You have paid for your shopping and want proof of payment: a чек in Russian, a receipt in English. At a restaurant, before paying, you ask for the счёт: the bill, or the check in American English. The familiar-looking word check can lead you to the wrong request if you forget the situation.

Everyday English vocabulary becomes more useful when you practise that decision: what do I need to understand or say here? Start with a short situation, recall the word or phrase, then check the answer. This guide gives Russian-speaking learners a small practice set for home, errands, food, work and daily routines. You can do it on paper without opening an app.

The examples and exercises were written with substantial AI assistance and checked against the language sources linked below. They are original teaching examples, not reports of learner trials or a teacher’s personal experience.

Understanding a word and finding it yourself are different tasks

Look at these two prompts:

Task	Prompt	What you do
Understand English in context	“Please keep the receipt until Friday.” What does the bold word mean here?	Recall the Russian meaning: чек; подтверждение оплаты.
Produce an English word	“Вы уже заплатили. Попросите чек: Could I have a ___, please?”	Find the English word: receipt.

The deck described below calls the first type a recognition card: the English target is visible, and you recall its Russian meaning. It still requires retrieval before you reveal the answer. The second is a controlled production card: the Russian situation and the English sentence help you supply a missing word. It gives you more support than making a whole request in conversation.

Keep these results separate. If you understand receipt but can’t recall it at the shop, another English-to-Russian card repeats the direction you have already answered successfully. Add a situation-to-English prompt for that word. You don’t need to reverse every card: a Russian translation can allow several English answers.

Choose a situation before adding more words

Pick something you expect to do: leave home, put food away, buy groceries or send a message. Learn a few usable combinations around that action. A collocation is a combination that English speakers commonly use together, such as catch the bus or send an email.

Situation	Keep the useful phrase together	Change one detail when you practise
Morning routine	wake up; get dressed; catch the bus	“I wake up at six.” → “I wake up at seven.”
At home	put the milk in the fridge; wash my hands	“The milk is in the fridge.” → “The cheese is in the fridge.”
Shopping and errands	ask for a receipt; pay by card	“Can I pay by card?” → “Can we pay by card?”
Food	have lunch; a cold drink	“I have lunch at home.” → “I have lunch at work.”
Work	send a file; ask a question	“Please send the file today.” → “Please send the file tomorrow.”

Change details you already understand. If the new sentence introduces an unfamiliar verb form, check that form separately rather than treating every difficulty as forgotten vocabulary.

The British Council’s A1–A2 vocabulary lessons offer topic-based practice, including everyday objects, routines, shopping and meals. Those topics are a useful starting boundary. They don’t make any particular word collection a complete beginner course.

Give the prompt enough context

A short card can still leave the answer unclear. Fix the situation before trying harder to remember it.

Receipt, bill and check. After paying, ask for a receipt as proof of payment. At a restaurant, a bill tells you what you owe; American English also uses check for that restaurant bill. Compare the Cambridge receipt entry with its restaurant sense of check. Write the purpose into the Russian prompt: подтверждение оплаты or счёт к оплате.

Work and job. Russian работа can lead to either word. Practise “I start work at nine” alongside “I have a new job.” In this employment sense, work is uncountable; job is countable. Cambridge’s work reference explains the distinction. Keep the sentence around the gap so that “a new ___” asks a clearer question than an isolated translation does.

Free. “The delivery is free” concerns cost. “Are you free after lunch?” concerns time and availability. The Cambridge entry for free separates these senses. A Russian prompt should specify бесплатный or свободный по времени rather than expecting one translation to cover both.

Answers can have alternatives too. For “Ты свободен после обеда? Are you ___ after lunch?”, free and available both fit. Record useful valid alternatives on the back. If you produce another answer that seems natural, check its meaning and whether it fits the supplied sentence before deciding the card was wrong.

Try these ten prompts with the answers covered

For 1–5, give the Russian meaning of the bold word or phrase in this sentence. For 6–10, fill the gap in English. Write or say an answer before scrolling to the key. These are practice questions, not a level test.

1. Routine: “I get dressed before breakfast.”
2. Home: “Please put the yoghurt in the fridge.”
3. Food: “This tea is hot, so I’ll wait for it to cool.”
4. Shopping: “The bread costs €3. I pay €5 and get €2 change.”
5. Work: “I have a new job at a hotel.”
6. Routine: “Нужно успеть на автобус: We need to ___ the bus.” Fill in the verb.
7. Home: “Перед приготовлением еды мою руки: I ___ my hands before cooking.” Fill in the verb.
8. Food: “Обедаю в час: I have ___ at one.” Fill in the meal.
9. Shopping: “Я уже заплатил и хочу подтверждение оплаты: Could I have a ___, please?” Fill in the document.
10. Work: “Ты свободен по времени после обеда? Are you ___ after lunch?” Fill in an adjective.

Answer key

1. Одеваться. Get dressed is the whole expression. In this sentence: “Я одеваюсь перед завтраком.”
2. Холодильник. “Пожалуйста, поставь йогурт в холодильник.” Keep in the fridge with the noun when practising where food goes.
3. Горячий. The tea needs to cool, so the context selects temperature. “Этот чай горячий, поэтому я подожду, пока он остынет.”
4. Сдача. Here change is the €2 returned after payment, not a change in plans. Cambridge lists this money sense of change.
5. Работа; место работы. “У меня новая работа в гостинице.” A new job refers to a position and uses the countable noun.
6. Catch. “We need to catch the bus” means “Нам нужно успеть на автобус.” Practise catch the bus together.
7. Wash. “I wash my hands before cooking” means “Я мою руки перед приготовлением еды.”
8. Lunch. “I have lunch at one” means “Я обедаю в час.” Eat lunch is another ordinary phrase, but this prompt already supplies have.
9. Receipt. The payment is complete; you want evidence of it. “Could I have a receipt, please?” means “Можно мне чек?”
10. Free or available. Both ask whether the person has time. Here free means “свободен”, rather than “бесплатный”.

If an answer was difficult, name the problem. Did you forget the meaning, fail to find the English word, or choose a word that didn’t fit the sentence? That tells you which prompt to keep for another review.

Use a small repeatable round

Choose five words or phrases from one situation. First read their meanings and examples. Then cover the answers and try each prompt. After a miss, check the answer, read the full sentence, and try again after several other items. Don’t count an answer you have just copied as independent recall.

For two phrases you expect to say, add a production prompt with a Russian situation and a short English gap. On a later review, change a familiar detail: a different time, food or document. Finally, try one complete sentence with the gap sentence hidden. That last step removes some support; it still doesn’t test a live conversation.

Return to the material on later days. Recalling an answer gives you practice retrieving it, and spaced reviews bring that practice back after a gap. A foreign-language vocabulary experiment by Karpicke and Roediger found a benefit of repeated retrieval for delayed recall. Cepeda and colleagues’ spacing study also shows that useful review timing depends on how long you want to retain the material. Neither establishes a single ideal timetable for this practice set.

Use your app’s due reviews, or keep a paper list and return tomorrow and again later in the week. Adjust after checking what you can recall. Reading the same answers repeatedly in one sitting gives you little information about what you can retrieve days later.

For more practice, the everyday English deck with Russian prompts and explanations follows these five situations. It contains 180 cards: 120 contextual meaning prompts and 60 controlled production prompts, covering 120 words and expressions. The study targets are English; the instructions and explanations are Russian.

The deck is intended for beginners who can already read simple English sentences, with A1–A2 as a broad editorial orientation. Practical additions include rubbish and put away, whose relevant senses Cambridge labels B1. It isn’t a complete A1–A2 inventory or a level certificate.

The deck practises written vocabulary and short phrases. For sound distinctions, use separate listening practice; our minimal-pair flashcard guide explains how to keep a listening answer hidden. For your next vocabulary round, take one real situation from tomorrow and choose the few expressions you want ready when it happens.